“My time in prison was very hard and unpleasant, among other things due to lack of medication,” explains Jorge Ernesto Pérez García
14ymedio, 21 March 2024, Havana — This Friday, the Provincial Court of Havana granted conditional freedom to Jorge Ernesto Pérez García, a member of the Clandestinos group, arrested in January 2020 and sentenced to five years in prison for the crimes of “defamation of institutions and organizations and of the heroes and martyrs of a continuing character” and drug trafficking.
Pérez García, who was tried in the case against the group that threw red paint on pro-government propaganda posters and busts of José Martí, defines his time in prison as “atrocious.” The atrocities are “everywhere, not only in prison, but also in the violation of criminal prosecution rights and even in the Penal Code itself,” he explains in conversation with 14ymedio.
“I left prison on March 15 and my sentence ends on July 13,” the man, age 47 and a resident in the Altahabana neighborhood of the municipality of Boyeros, in Havana, told this newspaper.
“My time in prison was very hard and unpleasant, among other things due to lack of medication,” details Pérez García, who spent three years and four months in Combinado del Este where he was infected with Covid-19. The man denounces the difficulties in receiving medical care in Cuban prisons: “I do not speak only for myself, but on behalf of all prisoners in general.”
Now, he is trying to rebuild his life and, for the moment, he is still adapting to the new situation of having been able to return home to his family
After that time in the largest penitentiary center on the Island, Pérez García was transferred to an agricultural work camp, attached to the Combinado del Este, where he spent around eight months. A few days before receiving parole, he was taken to another forced labor camp known as Cetem, in the municipality of San Miguel del Padrón.
The Havana native’s health suffered during more than four years in prison. “I have tendonitis and my knees have become somewhat atrophied,” he explains to this newspaper. Now, he is trying to rebuild his life and, for the moment, he is still adapting to the new situation of having been able to return home to his family.
Pérez García’s mother, Mercedes García, maintained a long struggle with the authorities to ensure that her son received a change of precautionary measure and could finish his sentence outside of prison. In March 2021, the prisoner went on a hunger strike to demand his freedom, but he had to break the fast a few days later due to his poor health.
Pérez García was arrested on January 8, 2020, and on five occasions throughout that year, his lawyer requested a change of measure so that he could wait in freedom for the trial on the different charges, but in all cases this request was denied.
The other two members of Clandestinos convicted in the same case were Panter Rodríguez Baró and Yoel Prieto Tamayo, sentenced to 15 and 9 years in prison, respectively. These, according to the sentence, were the executors of the group’s activities while Jorge Ernesto Pérez was in charge of recording and taking photos of the actions and disseminating them.
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